Peter Bruce’s comments on the ANC’s economic and industrial policy being mired in the past (Business Day, November 23 2017) strikes at the heart of SA’s slow growth and high unemployment. During the National Party’s reign, effective industrial growth policy was collectively supported by the cheapest electricity in the world, captured local capital, a dominating local defence industry, downstream beneficiation and import replacement in the mineral energy complex via obsessive domestic research and development, enlarged economies of scale via subsidised manufactured exports even to China, and last but not least, very strong military-backed regional economic imperialism. Though all those industrialisation requirements were inherited by the ANC regime intact, not one of these mired imperatives — necessary due to SA’s unique geographical location far away from all major markets — is available to the ANC now. The result of this has been increasing deindustrialisation. Bruce is therefore c...
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